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This past weekend, a shocking event unfolded at a rally in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Former President Donald Trump was targeted in a shooting that tragically claimed the life of a spectator and left Trump himself with a minor ear injury. The alleged shooter, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, was fatally wounded during the incident.

In the aftermath of this attack, a crucial element for investigators became unlocking Crooks’ phone. The FBI, seeking to understand the motives behind the shooting, turned to Cellebrite, a digital intelligence company based in Israel.

Cellebrite provides technology used by various US federal agencies, including software designed to identify or bypass a phone’s passcode for law enforcement purposes. However, the standard Cellebrite software available to the local FBI field office in Pittsburgh proved ineffective against Crooks’ device. It was a newer Samsung model running on the Android operating system.

Forced to explore further options, FBI agents contacted Cellebrite’s dedicated team for liaising with law enforcement. Within a short timeframe, Cellebrite transferred additional resources and critically, new, unreleased software, to the FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.

The details regarding the initial failed attempt to access the phone and the nature of this unreleased software haven’t been publicly disclosed before. However, once equipped with the updated Cellebrite software, the FBI was able to unlock Crooks’ phone within a remarkable 40 minutes, as reported by The Washington Post.

Unlocking a phone can be a time-consuming process, ranging from mere seconds to days or even years. The complexity of the passcode heavily influences this timeframe. Cellebrite’s software utilizes various methods to gain access, including disabling the phone’s built-in security features that prevent repeated passcode attempts, while simultaneously generating millions of possible codes in a brute-force attack.

The specific method used by the FBI to unlock Crooks’ phone remains unknown.

Cellebrite, a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq stock exchange, derives a significant portion of its revenue from federal agencies in the US. The company, with reported first-quarter recurring revenue of $89.6 million for 2024 and involvement in over 5 million cases, actively seeks to expand its business with US federal clients.

However, Cellebrite’s practices haven’t been without controversy. Privacy advocates have consistently argued against such technology, categorizing it as unethical hacking, particularly when employed by foreign governments against activists. The company responded by ceasing operations in regions like China and Hong Kong due to human rights concerns raised in 2021. Cellebrite maintains that its software is strictly used for unlocking phones in legally sanctioned cases and never for surveillance purposes.

The investigation into the shooting at the rally in Pennsylvania is ongoing. While unlocking Crooks’ phone offers a potential window into his motivations, the content retrieved and its implications remain undisclosed to the public.